Liars, Inc. (9 page)

WHILE I SCRIBBLED A NOTE
to Darla and Ben about how I left to go look for Preston, Parvati helped me quickly pack a bag of things I'd need for a couple days in case I went straight from the Colonel's cabin to Vegas. Then she went to pick up Amanda while I headed toward the Angeles National Forest.

My tires quickly ate up the miles of dusty highway. I still didn't know if running away was a smart move. Parvati thought it was, but easy for her to say. She wasn't the one implicating herself in a possible felony. Still, thanks to her mom she knew more about this crap than I did, and what she said made sense. The FBI agents would present my lies to the judge, along with the bloody trunk and missing phone, and I'd be done for. They'd assign me another overworked
public defender who would tell me to take a plea bargain, and I'd end up in jail. Not happening.

I puzzled over two main questions as I drove. The first: who would want to hurt Pres? He was our school's most beloved athlete, but his rah-rah go-team image was mostly smoke and mirrors. He didn't give a shit about school spirit or our classmates. He played football because he loved it, the feel of slipping between two hulk-like defenders, the thrill of beating the odds. It was the same reason he liked surfing and gambling. He liked taking risks, especially when he came out on top, which he almost always did.

In that sense, a lot of people might have wanted to hurt him. People who he had lied to or beaten. People who had gambled with him and lost. Or won. Jared Jacobsen said Preston might have moved on to bigger and better things. Was Pres betting with a professional bookie? Maybe that was why he was so secretive about his recent online activities. Maybe that was the real reason he went to Vegas. I thought about what happened in movies to gamblers who owed money. I hoped Pres wasn't lying bloody and beaten in an alley somewhere.

The other question was harder: who would want to hurt
me
? I was basically invisible at school and tried my best not to piss people off at the beach. I couldn't think of a single person who had anything against me. But someone had lied
about Preston and me fighting at the top of Ravens' Cliff, and possibly planted Pres's bloody phone in my trunk. It had to be the Jacobsens, didn't it? No one else was there.

No.

Wait.

There was another car.

A gray SUV.

I had nearly crashed into a gray SUV just down the street from my house when I was daydreaming about Parvati. It could have been the same one that was parked at the beach overlook on Sunday morning.

My phone buzzed. Shit. If I left it on, the feds would be able to GPS me. I glanced down at the display before switching it off. Darla. My stomach tightened. I was screwing up everything—our birthday dinner, trimming the tree. I wondered if she and Ben had ever regretted adopting me, if they were secretly glad I was eighteen now so they could be rid of me whenever they wanted.

I'd been on the road for just under an hour when the turnoff for the cabin appeared. I realized I hadn't thought about what I should do with my car. Parking it in the Colonel's driveway didn't seem like a smart idea.

I turned off the winding two-lane road about a mile past the cabin when I saw a sign for a nature preserve. Gravel sprayed up on both sides of me as the car lurched
and bounced down a shallow incline. I did my best to avoid the bathtub-sized potholes and low-hanging branches. At the bottom of a hill, a tiny parking area sat overgrown with weeds. I pulled the Escort as far into the high grass as I could. Anyone who came this way would find it, but it wouldn't be visible from the top of the hill.

A wooden trailhead, with a place for backpackers to register if they were going into the backcountry, stood at the edge of the parking area. If someone found the car, maybe they'd think I hiked into the wilderness to hide.

The camping gear from Preston's alibi was still in my trunk. If I remembered right, the cabin was pretty sparsely furnished. I'd need just about everything I had with me to survive comfortably there. I packed my sleeping bag, first aid kit, a thermos of water, and the bag of clothes and toiletries Parvati had gathered for me into my oversized frame pack.

I hiked back up the gravel road and stood at the edge of the trees, listening for cars approaching on the highway. The last thing I wanted was for some trucker to see me. When the road was empty, I jetted across the street and quickly disappeared into the underbrush on the other side.

As I hiked toward the cabin, I reviewed the events of the last few days in my head. On Saturday I went camping and Preston went to Vegas. On Sunday night, he didn't come
home. The FBI was talking to me by Monday morning, and then again on Tuesday. Preston was eighteen and had a history of reckless and impulsive behavior. Senator's kid or not, the first idea should have been that Pres ran off on his own. Yet from the moment his disappearance was reported, the FBI was treating it as a crime. They knew stuff I didn't. That was the only explanation.

Thunder shook the sky. The dense foliage blocked out most of the daylight, making it seem later than it was. I ducked under a low-hanging branch, a carpet of pine needles crunching beneath my feet.

Preston might have come back to the overlook parking lot when I was already down on the beach. Let's say he was missing his phone. Maybe my car was unlocked (it usually was), so he popped the trunk without making his way down the steep trail to come find me. He found his phone at the bottom of the camping gear and then someone hit him on the head. That would explain the phone and the blood. Or maybe someone followed him from the beach overlook, jumped him when he stopped for gas or something, and then planted his bloody phone in my trunk afterward.

But why would anyone do that?

Unless . . .

Maybe I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Maybe I was just a convenient fall guy. If someone wanted
to kidnap the school's MVP, why not pin it on the kid who gets paid to fake alibis? There was a certain poetic justice to it all.

I climbed up a small slope and escaped from the trees onto a winding dirt road, and there it was—the Colonel's cabin. Parvati had made me a spare key during the summer, back when we used to hang out there on a regular basis. I glanced around nervously, hoping no one was watching. I knew this whole area was full of similar cabins, most of which were probably deserted this late in the year.

I opened the metal storm door quickly and unlocked the inner door. It creaked as it swung inward, and the smell of rancid meat overwhelmed me. Covering my nose with my shirt, I flipped a switch on the wall, and the only bulb still working in the light fixture above my head crackled to life. The cabin looked pretty much the same as I remembered it: sparse but functional. The slick vinyl sofa sat against the back wall of the living room, and the wooden coffee table was bare except for a half-empty box of ammunition.

I ducked into the small kitchen, just to make sure I was alone. The fridge and stove were both smudged with dirty glove prints, and the steel countertop didn't look like it had been properly wiped down after the last person had cleaned his game. No wonder the whole place smelled funky. I dropped my gear in one of the two small bedrooms. They
were just boxes with rollaway beds, a tiny bathroom between them. It was livable, but it wasn't anywhere I wanted to live for too long. Good thing I'd be out of there in the morning. I would have to keep moving if I didn't want McGhee and Gonzalez to catch me. That was another thing I had learned on the streets. Being homeless was like being a shark—survival was a matter of always moving forward.

Unfortunately, I couldn't do anything until Parvati showed up later. Desperate for a distraction, I plunked down on the sofa and flipped through the handful of TV channels. All I got were varying degrees of static. What were the feds doing? Gonzo had probably skipped right past the search warrant to the arrest warrant, and I couldn't even blame him. Maybe they were already looking for me. Or interviewing people at school about
me
instead of Preston. Someone would tell them about Liars, Inc. Someone would tell them Parvati and I still seemed like a couple. That would be enough for them to contact her, if they hadn't already. She was Preston's other best friend, after all. She'd definitely get questioned sooner or later.

I knew she'd lie to protect me, but I also knew her mother would insist on being present for any questioning. Would her mom see through Parvati's stories? Would she consider the possibility her own daughter might be aiding and abetting a fugitive?

Was I a
fugitive
?

I swore under my breath. Hiding out here had made perfect sense when I was talking to Parvati, but now I wasn't so sure. Maybe this was a really bad idea. Was it too late for me to go back? I could have her turn in the phone, explain why I ran. Innocent people ran from the cops on TV all the time. McGhee and Gonzalez might understand.

Or they might just let the pieces fall neatly into place . . . and crucify me.

I fiddled with a rip in the sofa, my fingers aimlessly pulling out bits of cream-colored stuffing. Three mounted bass looked down at me from the wall behind the television. Their mouths gaped low, like they were drowning. The more I looked at them, the more I felt like they were trying to tell me something.

Air. Fresh air would be good. I decided to go for a walk in the woods behind the cabin. I headed through the kitchen and out the back door, stopping for a second to pull a questionably squishy bag from the trash can. Maybe the rancid smell wasn't coming from the dirty countertop. I knotted the top of the bag without looking inside and dropped it outside the door. The forest stretched out around me.

The trail from the back of the cabin led through the trees to the edge of a cliff that overlooked a river. It was only slightly
overgrown since the last time Parvati and I came here. We used to hide in the foliage and stalk deer. Parvati didn't want to hurt them. She just wanted to see if she could get close enough to touch one.

My eyes quickly adjusted to the waning light as I headed down the path. I could hear the water before I could see it. At the edge of the cliff I looked down. Fifty feet below, the river writhed and twisted, black water roaring through the turns.

I sat on the edge of the cliff, dangling my feet over the side. Parvati and I used to swim in the river. I still remembered the first time she dared me to jump from this spot. I wasn't going to do it, but then she did, so I had to. It was terrifying, the brief instant of free fall before crashing into the icy water. But it was exciting too. One day we must have jumped at least twenty times. We'd had so much fun during the summer. It sucked that I had to be here without her.

My stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn't eaten since I choked down a few bites of sandwich much earlier. I wandered back to the cabin and into the kitchen. Unfortunately, the cupboards were empty.

I wondered if it was safe to hike back to my car and drive to the nearest town to get fast food. A crash of thunder and the sound of rain battering the corrugated roof put an end to that idea. I dug through the drawers and cabinets one more
time, looking for anything edible. No such luck.

The digital clock on the microwave read five o'clock and I was ready to go to bed. Boredom will do that to you. I wondered if Parvati had managed to snag Pres's hard drive, if she was on her way to the cabin. I wished I could turn on my phone.

“She can wake me up when she gets here,” I muttered under my breath. I unrolled my sleeping bag onto the cot in one of the tiny bedrooms. It was more comfortable than it looked, but it was low to the ground and only half the width of my bed at home. No matter which way I turned, one of my limbs hung over the side and onto the floor. After a few minutes of tossing and turning, I moved my sleeping bag out to the sofa in the living room. Slightly better, except my arm kept falling down in the cushions. One of the sofa coils was poking through the fabric and each time the sharp metal stabbed my hand I jolted back awake.

I pressed my hands to my chest, mummy-style, and was almost asleep when I heard the cabin door open. Even though Parvati was the only one who knew where I was, my heart slid up into my throat. I sat up quickly, praying she wasn't wrong about hunting season being over.

Her slim figure slipped through the door, and I exhaled deeply. “Hey, P,” I said. “Find out anything interesting?”

“Maybe.” She shook drops of rain from her curtain of hair.
“I brought you something.”

“Please let it be dinner.” My stomach was shrieking for decent food.

“Not quite.” Parvati pulled a black handgun from her purse.

“WHAT THE HELL?” MY JAW
dropped.

She tried to hand me the gun, but I pulled away at the last second and it landed on the floor between us. She ducked out of the way like she thought it might go off.

“Holy shit! That thing is loaded? Have you lost your mind?”

“What good is an unloaded gun?” she asked, like I was completely dense. She picked it up and handed it to me again.

I took it reluctantly, angling the barrel toward the ground. “Is the safety on at least?”

She shook her head. “There's no safety, Max. It's a Glock, like your FBI pals use. You just slide the lever and pull the trigger. It's made for dropping people.”

“What, are you a gangsta now? Who exactly am I supposed to be
dropping
?”

Parvati hopped up on the sofa and sat cross-legged next to me. “If someone snatched Preston, who knows what else the guy is capable of? I just think we need to consider all of the angles. We need to protect ourselves.” She tugged at the ends of her hair. “What if this wasn't about politics or some crazy internet girlfriend? What if it was closer to home? Maybe we screwed someone with one of our alibis.”

The gun felt like a live grenade in my hand. I set it gingerly onto the coffee table. “What? Like some loser high school kid kidnapped Pres? I think this is bigger than that. Besides, he was mostly just our PR guy.”

“Did he ever say anything about having trouble with that David guy he was helping in calc class?”

“David Nephew? He's about half Preston's height and one-third his weight. Even if David had a baseball bat and a tranquilizer gun, I'd still bet on Pres. And didn't you say he was all surprised when Preston didn't show up at school yesterday?”

“True. Can you think of anyone else?” she pressed.

“I don't think he set up many alibis by himself,” I said. “I had to hook up Quinn with an excuse note that Pres forgot about, but other than that we haven't had any complaints.”

“Do you know who he was always texting?” she asked. “Or what he was doing on his laptop all the time?”

“I figured it was online gambling,” I said. “Or talking to this Violet girl. What was on his phone?”

Parvati pulled it out of her purse. The screen was dark. “I only turned it on for a few seconds, but everything before Saturday has been wiped. No videos. No pix. No texts.”

That didn't make sense. Preston was always shooting videos and saving stuff on his phone. “So there's nothing on it?”

“Only a handful of calls and texts from me, you, and his parents.” She slipped the phone back into her purse. “I just don't want whoever's gotten to him to get to you too, Max.”

She said this all matter-of-factly, like Preston being “gotten to” was no big deal, but I knew better. I knew Parvati. I knew that the more things bothered her, the more she acted like everything was fine. That was why some swim team girl talking to me at school was enough to rile her up, but the news of a friend's disappearance didn't even seem to register on her pretty face.

“What about you?” I turned toward her. “Any of your call-ins go wrong? Anyone get busted?”

She shook her head. “Not that I know of.”

“Well, if I'm in danger, you're probably in danger too.”

“I'm a brown belt, remember? Plus no shortage of guns at the Amos compound.” She raised her shirt just high enough
to show me her shoulder holster.

I cringed at the thought of Parvati locked and loaded, but at least she wouldn't shoot off her own foot like I might. Her dad had taught her how to handle rifles and shotguns in middle school, and she'd been practicing with a handgun for at least a year. I'd only seen the inside of her bedroom a handful of times, but I would never forget her proud display of paper targets, all of which had ten hits in the inner circle.

“Besides,” she continued, “no one is trying to kidnap me
or
frame me as far as I know.”

“Have you heard anything new?” I asked, dreading the answer. “Is there a ransom note?”

“No,” she said. “But I heard Astrid Covington say the Vista P cops were searching the water, that they think maybe Preston got pushed off Ravens' Cliff.”

“So Astrid is telling everyone I killed him?”

“Well, she didn't say your name specifically, but—”

I cut her off. “Did you get the hard drive?”

Parvati's pupils widened, making her eyes look completely black. “Of course.” She pulled a flat, metallic rectangle from her jacket pocket. “Esmeralda let me in, and for a while no one knew I was there. I also took some pictures of Pres's room.” She slid her laptop out of her backpack, plugged it into the wall, and turned it on. While we waited for it to boot up we scrolled through the photos on
her phone, looking for anything unusual.

I squinted at the screen. There was almost no hint of Preston in the blank white walls and black lacquer furniture. For the most part, it could have been anyone's room. Parvati and I studied the pictures one at a time. His bookshelf, prominently featuring a neat line of textbooks he probably hadn't opened all year. His dresser, a mess of toiletries—aftershave, deodorant, contact solution.

“I didn't know Preston wore contacts,” I said.

“Me neither.” Parvati flipped to another picture and pointed at Preston's open closet door. His rich-kid pants and designer sweaters hung on one side, a wash of deep blues and greens, muted tans and yellows. The other side was full of black rock-band T-shirts and ripped jeans. In private, Pres dressed like me, but his parents had bribed him to quit “looking like a thug” in public by buying him a second wardrobe and a brand-new BMW. I guess they thought if he dressed like a yuppie and drove the car of a forty-year-old that he'd join the country club and start building a stock portfolio instead of getting wasted and gambling away his allowance. It had never worked, as far as I could tell.

I looked back and forth between the wardrobes. If you didn't know Preston, you'd swear this closet belonged to two different people. There was a small ribbon of blank space in the middle.

“Normally it's overflowing with clothes,” Parvati said. “I wonder if Pres planned on staying with Ms. Violet for more than just a couple of days.”

The closet looked pretty full to me, but obviously Parvati had been in his room more than I had. “Or maybe Esmeralda was just behind with the laundry,” I offered.

Parvati snorted. She scrolled to the next image. “Unlikely. I never saw that woman fall behind on anything. Did you happen to notice if Pres had a lot of stuff packed?”

“His whole car was full of camping stuff, but I thought it was just for the alibi. He gave me some, but I didn't go pawing through the rest.”

“Did the FBI guys ever find his car?” she asked.

“Not that I know of, but they haven't exactly been keeping me in the loop.”

Parvati's laptop beeped, and the start-up screen finally appeared. She plugged Preston's external drive into the USB port.

“Where'd you find that, anyway?” I asked.

She smiled enigmatically. She was good at that enigmatic thing. She pointed at her phone, at the picture of Pres's bookshelf. “False book,” she said. “No one would ever decide to pull out
Essentials of Trigonometry
and start thumbing through.”

“How did
you
know?” For the first time, I felt jealous of
Parvati instead of Preston. It was irrational—they'd been friends for three times as long as Pres and I had—but still, it kind of bothered me that she knew things about him I didn't.

“We made them together freshman year—razor-bladed out a square in the middle of the pages. It was my idea,” she said proudly.

I could see them there, sitting cross-legged on Preston's bed, silver blades poised over the crisp pages of unused math books. Parvati looking conspiratorial. Preston with that usual relaxed grin of his. I wondered what else they'd done together, what other stories I'd never heard.

“Was there anything else hidden in there?”

She shrugged. “Just his passport and a few pictures from when he was a kid.”

I stared at the laptop screen as a group of folders popped up, arranged in two orderly rows. The good thing about investigating someone who kept his external hard drive in a doctored trigonometry book was that he didn't think he had to encrypt his files. I scanned the folder names: docs, tunes, pix, vids.

“Let's try docs first,” she said. “Maybe he saves emails.”

No luck: it was full of school papers. Pix was more interesting. There were several sub-folders with two-letter names that seemed to be initials. I saw my own initials, as well as
Parvati's. Only one folder started with
V
. Parvati seemed to be sharing my train of thought. She clicked on the VC folder, and sure enough, three thumbnail images of a blonde girl came up.

Parvati clicked on the first one to enlarge it, and her jaw dropped slightly. “Is it just me or does she look kind of old?”

“It's not just you,” I said. The girl stood in front of the pirate ship display at the Treasure Island Hotel. She wore the same short skirt–tall shoes combo that a lot of the chicks at Vista P were always rocking, but there was just something about the photo that made her look older. Maybe it was the hairstyle, or the way her shirt fit, or the hardness of her smile. I couldn't put my finger on it. The second picture was a headshot, a little blurry, like someone had snapped it with a cheap cell phone. The woman was pretty, but I could see ridges in her forehead and tiny wrinkles at the corners of her eyes that only came with age. She was wearing a bikini in the third picture, and although her body was banging, she was still clearly much older than Preston.

I squinted at the photo's background, but it just looked like a generic beach. It could have been taken anywhere. I guess a picture of her posing in front of her house, address prominently displayed, was asking a little much.

“Let's see if we can find her.” Parvati connected the hard drive to her phone and transferred over the image files. She
fiddled around until she got a decent signal and then opened a search engine page and pasted the first picture into the image search box.

I leaned over her shoulder. “I didn't know you could search by picture.”

“Watch and learn.” Parvati smiled as a social networking profile pulled up. I peeked over her shoulder, but the text was too tiny to read. “Get this,” she said, in a voice that let me know a big reveal was coming. “I think I know why Preston didn't tell us about her.” She paused for emphasis. “Violet Cain. Las Vegas. Thirty-five years old.”